I think many of us humans are idealists at heart. Our visions are grand, our intentions are golden. And unfortunately, because our ideals are so grand, and sometimes so wonderfully articulated, we come to adopt an opinion of ourselves as being somewhat like our ideals. Yet rarely... how rarely... are we really.
The problem with living up to our Ideals is a pesky little thing called Reality. I want to be a good steward of the Earth... but cloth diapers?? Are you kidding? Yuck! I want to be faithful in prayer... but in the morning sleep sounds so good, and at night I'd rather drift into a coma of simple humor and radiant pixels. I want to alleviate human suffering.... but I don't want to deal with that needy patient in room 4 - can you get more annoying?? The same problem surrounds helping the poor, the hurting, the suffering... the reality is... they are human. And often they are rude, entitled, ungrateful, and sometimes downright irritating. I'm none of those things of course (cough), which makes it all so much more frustrating.
To help in theory is so glorious, to help in Reality takes so much of those unnatural and perplexing virtues... you know like humility.... self sacrifice.... faith...
I think if understood correctly, God can use our ideals to produce just those things. He gives us the glorious mental image of what goodness, justice and virtue look like... and then He gives us a good long look in the mirror. He gently (or not so gently) reminds of the need for forgiveness and mercy. If in the end we fall on our knees acknowledging how far we fall from all that is most important to us, begging Him to take us and make us what once we were meant to be... I guess that is the only real start in beginning to narrow the space between our Ideals and our Reality.
